The English Faculty Library is currently dressed up in its most colourful finery. Each year, for both LGBT+ History Month (February) and Pride Month (June), various pride flags drape the halls of the library and I must say, they look wonderful. Whilst the EFL does not have a designated LGBT+ History Month display like some other libraries will this year, our current display (curated by yours truly) is particularly topical.

The title of the display is “TO BE DESTROYED:” The Legal History of Book Censorship in the UK and it is essentially a (mostly) complete timeline of the major events/publications that resulted in the creation of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. As such, the display begins in 1476 (the introduction of the printing press to England); traverses past John Milton’s ‘Areopagitica’ of 1644; makes a stop in 1857 (the first Obscene Publications Act); picks up a little context in 1868 (Cockburn’s definition of the term ‘obscene’); strolls past the various obscenity trials of the twentieth century; and finally comes to its conclusion at the present day. It also considers the wider impact these various laws had and touches upon their international reach.

As shown in the display, the current piece of legislation (the 1959 Act) took huge steps in reforming previous laws aimed at curbing the publication, sale, and distribution of material deemed to be obscene and corruptive. In numerous instances, these historic laws resulted in the censorship of an array of queer literature; most famously, Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928).

But let us first get into the crux of what is meant by the term ‘obscene’. The Act’s predecessor was that of 1857, enacted at a time when the political elite became concerned about the rise in literacy rates – especially amongst the working classes. As such, Lord Campbell penned his Obscene Publications Act which made the distribution of ‘obscene’ materials a statutory offence. It also gave police the authority to search for, seize, and destroy these documents. One thing Lord Campbell did not do, however, was define the term ‘obscene’.

Understandably, confusion arose surrounding the vagueness and looseness of his terminology, so, in 1868, during the case R v Hicklin, the Lord Chancellor Alexander Cockburn provided his famed definition of the term (see below). It was this definition which “dominated obscenity law ever since” (Crawley 66) and provided the legal foundations to the cases of some of the most famous works of literature. It is important to note too that, in this case, it was ruled that extracts of a book should be judged independently of the text as a whole. In other words, if any isolated material was obscene, then the whole book would be judged as so.

“I think the test of obscenity is this, whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.” (‘Regina v. Hicklin’)

So, this was Cockburn’s definition…still fairly vague right? It was, however, these words which ultimately led to Hall’s novel being outlawed – sixty years after they had been spoken. The text’s main ‘offence’ was its portrayal of a lesbian relationship; however, it is famously tame and free of any explicit material. Additionally, lesbianism was not outlawed at the time so the reason for censorship fell upon Lord Cockburn’s interpretation of the word ‘obscenity’. To the judge, Sir Chartres Biron, the novel did indeed have the tendency to ‘deprave or corrupt’ because it looked upon the protagonist and their sexuality with sympathy. Therefore, the novel was ordered to be destroyed and was banned until 1949 – after Radclyffe Hall’s death.

Yet in the spirit of this year’s LGBT+ History Month theme, Activism and Social Change, Radclyffe Hall’s case was a landmark one in showcasing the frustration of censorship laws of the time and the need for change. Wan writes that “Norman Birkett, the defence lawyer, had assembled a formidable group of witnesses, including E.M. Forster, Desmond McCarthy (the editor of Life and Letters), Leonard and Virginia Woolf, [and] Vita Sackville-West” (150) to defend the novel and oppose censorship. Most of these figures were queer creatives, and all were members of The Bloomsbury Group – an influential artistic social circle of the early twentieth century.

Unfortunately, their desire for change was not met this time, however, due to the vast amount of publicity which the case attracted, Hall’s status as a lesbian icon was firmly cemented. In many ways, Hall’s trial also led to wider exposure to this so-called ‘obscene’ material, thus, having the opposite of the intended effect. Alterations to the Obscene Publications Act finally came about in 1959 after a few years of legal back and forth on the matter. This included a new test for obscenity in which the whole of the text and its literary merit should be considered before receiving its judgement. In 1960, this amendment would be tested in the case R v Penguin Books Ltd – the infamous trial of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover which you can read more about in the display!

*It is important to note that, whilst Radclyffe Hall can indeed be viewed as a courageous advocate for social change, her personal politics can divide opinion. To understand more about her life, I would recommend listening to the Bad Gays podcast featuring Jana Funke, Professor of Modern Literature and Sexuality Studies at Exeter University. The link to the episode can be found below!*

https://badgayspod.com/episode-archive/cw21b2uyw6oqmv41l1encmqi0y0mqe

Works Cited

Crawley, Karen. “’The Chastity of our Records’: Reading and Judging Obscenity in Nineteenth-Century Courts.” Censorship and the Limits of the Literary: A Global View., edited by Nicole Moore, New York; London, Bloomsbury, 2015, pp. 65-77.

‘Regina v. Hicklin’ (1868), Law Reports 3: Queen’s Bench Division, 1867-68, p.371, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112103768471&seq=443&q1=obscenity.

Wan, M. (2016). The Well of Loneliness trials: lesbianism and the return of the repressed. Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction (pp. 138-170). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315544083-11